Are the Radiators for the VG engine all the same whether 5-speed or automatic? I just purchased one from someone selling their car for parts. Mine is starting to leak a little at the top, and they look the same, I haven't installed it yet because of the air bleed procedure.

 

The automatic radiator has a small heat exchanger built into it for the transmission, which you can just leave alone if you have a 5 spd..

auto radiator fits both auto and 5 spd.
5 spd rad fits 5 spd only.

 

well I have an automatic, and the on i got was off a 5-speed. but they look the same

 

look for the auto trans cooler lines; if they are there, it's not an original 5-speed rad.

 

Yeah they are there. Its just the same as the radiator I have in the car now, and it looks a bit new. It has the top and bottom hose hook ups plus the 2 tranny cooler line tubes at the bottom. Someone wanted to charge me $50 to put it in.

 

$50? i just shot Sprite out my nose, I laughed so hard.
Radiators aren't hard at all, and I guarintee you would have to finish the job, unless it was Caped who offered, then it may be worth it.
the worst part is bleeding them; park on the steepest hill around (nose up), turn the heater on, and add coolant mix. keep going until it stops burping.

 

lol, sounds pretty easy, but my heater core is shot, so How will I be able to bleed it like that?

 

define "shot," leaking, blocked, no heat, what?

 

50 isn't terribly bad if you're not a DIYer, most shops charge in the $400s around here for parts and labor for most cars/radiators. It's not hard at all but for some reason most shops like to make it sound hard and over price that labor.

 

It started leaking like two years ago(heater core) fogging up the windows really bad, and a strong antifreeze smell coming out the vents with poor heater perfomance. Was gonna replace it myself(practicing on a car at the junk yard) then the tranny died, so I havent gotten around to replace it yet. For the time being, I by-passed it. Is it possible to still be able to bleed the radiator without the heater core since mine is leaking?

 

I plan to replace it myself, problay saturday morning. The guy I bought it from had an 89 SE 5-speed that for some reason had a broken crank shaft, and he didnt want to replace the engine, so he sold it for parts. He already had the radiator out, and said it takes like 30 minutes or so to install. He also gave me the coolant and the battery, then someone else bought the car for like $200. It was a really clean 89. I knew pretty soon I was gonna have to replace the radiator, after I broke the top hose inlet, but it was one of those jobs that I never did before, so I kinda avoided it until now when its starting to leak. It makes me nervous because I just replaced the tranny, so I dont want to loose the engine if I can avoid it.

 

You'll be fine, its fairly straight forward and doesn't require advanced skills at all, especially if its a manual transmission radiator.

-Simply drain through the drain **** on bottom haha I said ****!
-loosen 2 10mm at top by the brackets
-loosen upper clamp and lower clamp and pull hoses off
- reverse order of things
- fill up, lift front end and leave radiator cap off and allow for car to run a good 15-20 min to bleed the system, when the t-stat opens up, you'll see the coolant disappear and the fans will kick on, just top off the coolant and you're good to go

 

Since you have the heater core bypassed, you don't need to lift the car to bleed it. All you need to do is unscrew the bleeder screw on the top of the intake manifold and start filling it up.

The reason it takes extra steps to bleed the 3rd gens is because the heater core is placed higher than the top of the radiator. So the car has to be lifted up so that the radiator top is higher than the heater core for the bubbles to escape.

 

Ohh ok I see, this will be my saturday morning project. I learn new things everyday from you guys, and some mechanics think I read the haynes manual when they see what Ive done to the car lol! So I just unscrew the bleeder screw and fill the radiator up and wait til all the bubbles disappear?

 

yep, pretty much

 

Well actually It came from a manual transmission car, but it has those 2 tubes for the Automatic transmission cooler lines at the bottom like my radiator has, and mine is an automatic. If I had the money at the time I would have bought that 5-speed from him, sticks are fun to drive! and to think it only needed an engine, which the vg engines are not hard to find. Maybe I will take a pic of it to show you.

 

Take the bleed screw out on the top of the intake plenum and fill your coolant system with the car off, it will come out that port (if its's not clogged).....I'll be trying to order an all aluminum 2 row radiator from Genesis when it comes time......

 

Well I installed it yesterday, it was easier than I thought. I took the bleeder screw off and nothing came out, so I filled the radiator up with coolant and let the car run for a good 30 minutes, filled up the coolant tank, and watched it take in the coolant and filled it up again. I then took it on a test drive to see if things were ok, I also had to add more fluid to the tranny because I lost some when unscrewing the cooler lines. It works great, and it drove great. thanks for everyones help, I saved myself $50.

 

.org at its best right there.

 

MAXIMA.ORG
15 posts can save you $50 or more on car repairs.

 

Lol right about that!

 

at first... then it ends up costing you thousands in mods and upgrades...

 

hahaha I was just gonna say that